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Wednesday, March 8, 2017

#OklaEd chat questions for March 12

Well, someone somewhere messed up and gave me the keys to the pound sign Oklahoma Education (#OklaEd) chat on Sunday night.

My topic? How to help students succeed with "real life" English Language Arts (ELA) skills. I have a bee in my bonnet about prepping students for the workforce, and not just for the state tests they have to take. If that means they get through my class without knowing what a gerund is, but they can send their boss an email with the correct homophones in place, I feel like I've done my job.

I was asked to preview the questions in a blog, so here they are. I will give you my answers on Sunday evening, and I very much look forward to hearing yours as well.

Thank you, educators of Oklahoma, for what you do for our kids.

Introduce yourself. Have you ever gotten a work email with spelling/grammar mistakes? How did you react?

What ELA skills do you find yourself using the most at your job(s)?

What ELA skills do you think our students need to learn before they graduate?

How are you helping teach those skills to your students while staying inside your subject area?

How are you effectively demonstrating those skills to your students?

Do you use writing as a punishment (essays, sentences, words, lines, etc.)?

How can you specifically alter your lessons next school year to teach some of these “real life” ELA skills?

Do you show your writing to your classes? Do you write in real time on SmartBoards, etc.?

Do you think it’s important for your students to see you make “real-world” writing mistakes (as long as you correct them)?

Do you have a policy/reward system in place for when a student catches a typo/grammar mistake you’ve made?

I'm a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. I teach English and Literature to the youth of today. I love Jesus and my mother, and I'll gladly introduce you to both. I love photography and writing. Duke basketball keeps me occupied for half the year, and hating Chapel Hill keeps me busy the other half. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I like stories. I'm a big guy with a big voice, trying desperately to be heard by someone before The Lord takes me home. Let's be best friends.